Serpent in the Shadows
by Nyieni
Summary: An attempt to possess an infant Harry's body by the Horcrux leaves him with the memories and power of Lord Voldemort. Unsure of his identity and struggling to walk the line between Light and Dark, Harry must make his own path as he attracts the attentions of both sides.


**Serpent in the Shadows**

**I'm aware that there are several stories out there with a similar premise to this, but I'm hoping to make mine a bit different. Will be featuring a powerful, quite likely dark Harry, but I'm hoping to be able to write one that won't be too over the top.**

When Lily Potter had cast her body in front of her son and shattered his soul in a blaze of emerald green light, Voldemort had screamed.

Not in pain, though there had seemed to be no end of that, a blaze of white-hot agony that had purged him of his body, lancing through his spirit and cleaving it in two. But that had been accepted - that had been necessary. For a ritual such as this, a sacrifice had to be paid, something deeper than those lives he had quenched to fuel the spells needed to conquer his mortality. Eternity through agony, a phoenix rising from the ashes of its fire, the ourobous consuming and renewing itself. Pain was no stranger to Lord Voldemort, and he had been prepared to undergo the most agonising ritual yet when he went to the Potter's house on Halloween; his seventh Horcrux, his last barrier against death, forged through the death of the prophesied child. His greatest triumph yet, and one that amused him immensely, for what could be more fitting than for his foe to ensure that his reign over the magical world would be everlasting?

But that had not happened. Instead, Lily Potter, the filthy _mudblood_, that unworthy, sacrilegious abomination with no right to her magic at all, had taken his magic and flung it back on him, had destroyed him without lifting a wand in her own defence. He should have known, should have guessed that the slippery wench with her disregard for her proper place in the world would have planned something, just as she and her blood traitor of a husband had escaped his wand three times before. But she had died begging, where she belonged, and her body had crumpled to the ground so easily, leaving her precious son to cry helplessly in his crib, and Lord Voldemort had felt his victory to be complete.

Instead, he could only shriek with shock and utter rage as his own curse was turned back on him, as whatever protection that wretched Potter woman had created ripped him apart and left the shard bleeding and broken in the darkness, bound to the body of the only living creature left in the wreckage of the little cottage. Instead of leaving the last, precious portion of his soul enshrined in the gilded dagger that had once belonged to the Bloody Baron of Slytherin (what a pleasure it had been, commanding Lucius to hand over such a treasure from his own vaults) he was instead torn asunder and trapped within the body of the child he had sought to defeat.

An ordinary, simple child - one that could do nothing but endure the mistreatment of the muggles Dumbledore had left him with, mistreatment that Lord Voldemort shared, but could do nothing to punish. He would break their minds when he arose again; he would have them crawl in their own filth, starved like the animals they were, and then he would commit their disgusting forms to fiendfyre, watch as the unending flames licked them into cracked, crumbling forms of charcoal that would then themselves be consumed. And still it would not be enough, for there was no torment greater for such a powerful immortal than to be dependant upon such basic, unworthy beings while he raged helplessly within the mind of a child.

But arise again he would. If Lily Potter had _planned_ this, if she had intended to trap him within the mind of her child forever, she had made a grievous error. For Lord Voldemort was the greatest wizard of all time, and even a shard of his soul was more than sufficient to cower the world. Coiled in the cold darkness of the child's mind, the shadows where nightmares of green lights and a woman's screams lived alongside the hunger and distress of an infant torn from a warm, comfortable family and situated within a place where he was so clearly unwanted, even if he had not the mind to put words to these feelings. But Lord Voldemort knew them, Lord Voldemort knew all about hunger, about desires for more, and he fed from it, growing stronger as the terrors of the dark waxed within the child's mind and his misery grew. There were no Occlumency shields erected against him here, and any flimsy natural barriers were soon cracked and crushed under the onslaught of someone who had swept through the minds of others with only a glance.

His defeat had occurred not five weeks ago, but Lord Voldemort was ready to begin anew, to take possession of this body and use it to recreate himself. To regain a true form of life, he would need to drain it from another, but he was still weak now. Once he was in full control of the child, he would make use of what little magic he could without a wand and force the muggles into regaining an adult form and restoring him to his full power. A memory crossed his mind - of Billy Stubbs' rabbit, kicking frantically as his control was released and its air dwindled, and he felt a ripple of amusement at the thought, for they truly were as helpless as that mindless animal against one such as himself.

And so, when he deemed himself ready, Voldemort began. It was a tortuously slow process, but his impatience and anger sped it up, lending strength to the soul shard as it attacked Harry Potter's mind, coiling around it and crushing it as the great snakes did to the bodies of the prey. The infant had no defence against such an assault, the flimsy ties that bound the young mind to its body frayed, and the Horcrux felt a flare of elation as it tasted triumph, just inches from its grasp-

And then there was a flare of light, of warmth, scalding heat that burned the mind of the shard even as it reached for the boy's soul, searing away his power and spreading back to the spirit itself. Shocked, Voldemort jerked back, trying to withdraw into the safety of the recesses of Harry Potter's mind. But it was too late, for this strange magic was surging back with him, immobilizing and burning him, breaking him down into bits and pieces, shattering the core of what he was, all his magic, all his knowledge, all that was Lord Voldemort and dissolving it into the mind of the body he had attempted to take.

He saw a flash of green eyes, heard the faint noise of a woman's ghostly laughter-

And the Horcrux screamed.

**Reviews would be greatly appreciated!**


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